The dirt track between vineyards on the shores of Lake Geneva looked nothing like a road, but my GPS system insisted this was the way to my destination. As it turned out, the tractor-rutted road did lead to my friend’s house, but the route was neither the most direct nor the best maintained. On my…

Today’s first real post-winter foray into the garden reminds me that I’m a messy gardener. Late, as usual. But I’ve got a special packet of seeds to plant this week, and they’ve inspired me to be more attentive this year. This is the effect of the person who sent me the seed packet, my guru…

The bulk of the fracking boom currently underway in the United States is not only in one of the least populated and remote states, North Dakota (population 724,000 – and it’s only that large because of the fracking boom and all the new workers there), but it also takes place mostly underground. Sure, there are…

On World Wildlife Day, March 3, Nepal achieved a rare feat: an entire year without wildlife poaching. In the three years since 2011, the country lost a single rhino to poaching. Populations of rhinos, tigers and elephants are on the rise. Compare this to other nations, where these animals are disappearing fast. South Africa has…

Above is a Rorschach inkblot, used for decades in psychological assessment exercises as a means of examining personality characteristics and emotional function. Hermann Rorschach, the Swiss psychiatrist who was born on this day in 1884 and who invented the inkblot test, originally intended it as a tool for diagnosing schizophrenia. Below are projected images of…